Opal is bought with cash or trade from miners in Australia. The more you buy the better the deal you get. When a parcel is split up the price for each grade goes up. If you buy opal by the piece your going to pay more per oz than if you had bought the whole parcel. When a parcel is split usually the best piece or two is taken and sold for a premium. Miners like to take the best out and sell it separately to get top dollar. Most all miners are cutters to some degree. Most I know have cut stones for sale that they want top price for. Its very hard to get top quality opal. There is not much found and when it is its sold so fast its hard to get first in line. I buy my opal from the field directly from the miners. I get terribly anxious when visiting the fields and hoping they have opal for sale. Usually they have nothing or a few oz's of low grade opal available, but they always tell you they think they are close to getting some. You hang around Australia for two or three weeks visiting 10 or 12 miners several times and you don't get to see enough selection to feel satisfied. The shops in Coober Pedy have some nice opal but it will cost you. I seen 9 oz of lovely Holy Cross opal but they wanted $180,000.00.

I'm not sure where the opal industry is going. Miners are giving up or going bankrupt all the time. I hear there is lots of opal not found yet, but exploration is very expensive and few if any are looking. The precious stone fields are only around presently worked areas and the native land rights are everywhere else. With fewer miners striking anything worth mentioning it leaves them wondering what will they do. Younger men are not willing to ruff it like in the older days plus it costs lots of money to mine. I think we will see the end of opal mining as we have seen in the last 30-40 years. It's just not economical for the miners as they can't get enough for their opal. Less opal is being found and mining expenses are rising fast. With prices for opal rising 20% annually there are less and less bargains available. Not only that but people have been getting ripped off by unscrupulous sellers. It all makes for a bad atmosphere for opal. We need more miners and buyers not less. Every time some one gets ripped off it hurts the whole opal industry. I have heard horror stories from some of my customers and I even know some of the people that are being accused.

My hope is to see fuel prices drop, more people get interested in opal, me sell off what I have so I can go back and get more. The Australians that go to the gem shows boost their prices as they think Americans are use to paying top dollar. I have to let miners know I'm a poor Canadian and our dollar is the same so they won't try to rape me. I let them know I'm from a poor province in eastern Canada. No one has any money where I live. Then I start to bargain. I try to buy the nicer grades or better parcels as most of the available opal is low grade. 60% of the miners with opal I'm interested in are not willing to come down to my price but you can't blame them as they usually don't make anything. And I mentioned before I'm almost always disappointed when I see the opal that's for sale as its too low a grade to interest me much or rubbed with the price tripled. The miners are talking about getting together at Allan's Rise to sell their opal together so they won't under cut each other with pricing so they can get more. It all results in higher prices for us down the line. I have no overhead here at home and I do all the work myself. This is my hobby selling opal so I really make little to nothing except I get a few pieces of opal to play with. I consider my trips to Australia holidays so when you buy my opal your not paying for that. I get free flights with my air miles and I live with miners when I visit. I know my prices are far below other website prices for opal. Other sites don't have much if any opal sold in parcels.